Views and analysis of Chinese politics and policy from inside China, outside the Beijing and Shanghai beltways

Sunday, 15 May 2016

Local Realities of Political Change

The standard narrative about China is that common
people are seeking change and it’s the government that’s standing in their way.

Chinese people protest; Chinese authorities
back down; and as demonstrations grow, so does the possibility that Beijing will
be confronted with too many protests than the Chinese Communist party can cope
with, and will be compelled to reform quickly or lose power.

However, the local reality on the ground is far
more complicated, as events in Nanjing, the capitol of Jiangsu province, showed
this past weekend.

On Friday last week, Beijing
announced that the way the results of China’s annual national examination
for college admission were tabulated would change. Jiangsu, one of the
country’s more educated and affluent provinces and home to many leading
universities, would have to give up 38,000 openings heretofore allocated to the
province’s students to fill. The current examination system affords students
from urban areas a significant advantage in how the examination scores are
calculated and slots at universities are distributed. Many officials have been
arguing for years that the current system discriminates against less prosperous
provinces in China because those regions have been focusing on short-term
employment and industry at the expense of education.

While Jiangsu wasn’t the only province made
to sacrifice, officials here have been especially unenthusiastic about reforms to
the student selection system, because it makes their region more attractive to
educated residents to buy property or remain here after they graduate.

Jiangsu officials lost the argument. And their
constituents weren’t happy.

On the surface, the events in Jiangsu appear
to confirm the classical narrative of a restive and distrustful public rising
up against Chinese authorities, and officials being forced to back down—perhaps
even offer a model for future political change in China. So long as
demonstrators have will and determination, the government will be compelled to
concede.

But that’s misinterpreting what actually occurred.

Protests in China like the one in Nanjing
rarely start spontaneously; they have to be carefully and quietly
organized—something that’s simply impossible to do these days given the heavy
monitoring by the government. Indeed, local accounts of the demonstrations
indicate that the security forces and the cordon around government offices were
actually there before the protests commenced. At the very least, Nanjing
authorities knew something might happen and prepared for it.

In fact, it’s likely that some dissident
Nanjing officials, themselves angry at Beijing’s decision, were not entirely
displeased to see signs of public fury. They may well have been out to use that
anger as a means to pressure Beijing to allow local government to back away
from a policy that they themselves didn't like, and knew wouldn't be at all
popular.

One reason for this mutual restraint is that
the protestors weren’t interested in forcing political change or resignations,
just a shift in policy. The protests in Nanjing weren’t about changing to
something new, but preserving something old. As united as the demonstrators
might have been for the moment, their protest was about something that
benefitted them individually—an advantage that they are simply not willing to
share with others less fortunate elsewhere. And
like many rallies elsewhere in China, the demonstrations were aimed at
supporting the previous status quo, not seeking to upend the existing order.

We need to recognize that on
the 50th anniversary of the Cultural Revolution there are no rebellions
or large-scale revolts on China’s horizon; that political change in China these
days is local and mostly peaceful.Governance
is overwhelmingly by directive, with citizen participation appearing only when
new policies take away old privileges.

That may be comforting for some observers,
but it’s also discouraging for those Chinese officials and residents who want
greater transparency and trust. The recent events in Nanjing show how far away
from those goals so much of China remains.